AtWhatMileage
Electrical · 6 owner reports

Other electrical problem on the 1996 Toyota Avalon

Only 2 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 6
With an odometer reading 2
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 0%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $250–$2,000
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 6th

When other electrical problem gets reported

There are 6 reports of other electrical problem on the 1996 Toyota Avalon, 2 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 6th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 2 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 198,150 miles — —

Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.

What a percentile can and cannot tell you here

These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.

What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.

Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.

What happens, and what it costs

Putting it right typically runs $250–$2,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 20 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2010, at a median of 800 miles, and latest on the 1996 at 200,000 miles.

By volume the 2011 carries the most reports, with 20; the 1996 has 6. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.

If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Automatic air conditioner, A/C amplifier, air inlet servo motor & servo link & heater controls stop working and only works intermittently by itself. Toyota will not own up to this problem. Toyota only wants more money to fix the problem without telling you exactly what the problem is. Toyota has known about the inferior parts of their A/C system since 1995. They must have high profile lobbyist in washington for the NHTSA to let them get away with this for so long. Somebody must be getting paid some kind of way for the NHTSA to ignore this problem and let them get away with it. The NHTSA should make toyota come clean about their A/C problems and recall all automobiles with A/C problems. Toyota owners should at least be given a free diagnostic test on the A/C system to determine what is wrong and tell us in writing what parts that are affected, and (this is a long shot) repair the A/C for free. Thank you, for your time and consideration in dealing with this ongoing A/C problem. And I hope you had a good memorial day weekend. *tr

208,300 miles NHTSA complaint 981819 filed 2013-05-27

After receiving a jump, I was told to drive the car for about 20 minutes to recharge the battery. After driving for about 10 minutes, the gas pedal seemed to stick. Then when driving the speed began to accelerate without pressing the gas pedal. The longer we drove the higher the engine revved. I decided to return to my home about 5 minutes away then the car brake would not stop the car at a stop light and I had to quickly turn the corner to a side street until the light changed and I was able to enter my street. I pulled the car to the side to park it and it would not stop with my foot on the brake to the floor so I quickly put it in park and turned it off. It revved a few seconds before finally turning off. *tr

188,000 miles NHTSA complaint 966258 filed 2013-03-03

Also reported on the 1996 Toyota Avalon

Other engine problem

20 reports median 117k

Other visibility problem

11 reports median 55k

Other speed control problem

10 reports median 188k

Other brake problem

6 reports median 188k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 6 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 6 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.

Questions this page answers

At what mileage does other electrical problem happen on the 1996 Toyota Avalon?

Across 2 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 200,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other electrical problem on the 1996 Toyota Avalon?

6 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.

What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars

Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed